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Wednesday, February 05, 2014

What's left

So when my mom went to France last year, she brought back this Tour de France-y clyclist.

I so wish I'd taken a video of him in action, or even pictures of him before, piece by piece, he and the bicycle got destroyed.

I found this woman on the Internet, which is what he looked like on his bike.

His little feet stuck on the pedals with the posts you see at the bottom of his one remaining leg, and then you stuck him on the bike seat, and his, uh, penis held him in place. (I assume the woman cyclist also has a penis, unless they got a little more creative with her bike-seat attachment bits.)

Nick is convinced the designers had a good laugh over his design.

You put the hands he used to have, which were attached to the arms he used to have, around the handles. And then you turned a switch, and he pedaled the bike around in crazy circles while playing, oh, what was he playing? It was Pop Goes the Weasel or Yankee Doodle or something completely unexpected.

It was delightful in the kind of way that I imagine mild hallucinogens to be. And then rapidly annoying because honestly, there's only so much tinny music you can listen to while watching a crazed plastic biker careen around.

(I have done a bunch of searching in my limited French and am unable to find this guy in a store. Otherwise I would have more accurate facts and perhaps even for you.)

In any case, his bike broke because someone not quite four feet tall but way to big for the bitty plastic bike sat on it.

And then he lost an arm up to the elbow. And then the rest of it. Just a flesh wound! Come back here, you coward!

But Jordan still carried him around. We lost piece after piece, and still, there was something compelling about him.

And then the other day we found him - or rather, what was left of him: head, torso, leg, and penis.